The Greatest of All Plagues

 

Capitalism solved the problem of production, one of my professors used to say, but it's up to others to solve the problem of distribution. That "problem of distribution" is increasingly the problem of economic inequality, which is incredibly worse now than it was 50 years ago when I was studying political theory. As political scientist David Lay Williams reminds us in this latest - and very traditional - conversation within the history of political theory, whereas 'in 1965, the average CEO earned 21.1 times as much as a typical worker at the same company," by 2021,  the average CEO "earned 351.1 times as much as a typical worker at the same company."

The Greatest of All Plagues: How Economic Inequality Shaped Political Thought From Plato to Marx (Princeton U. Pr., 2024) is written in the format of a traditional history of political theory, treating the political philosophies of Plato, the NewTestament, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, and Karl Marx. The book takes its title from Plato's Laws, 744d, where the Athenian Stranger characterizes civil war as the greatest of all plagues, which he describes as an inevitable outcome of economic inequality. Plato's Laws in fact famously restrict inequality to a 4:1 ratio.

Williams takes us through some of the traditional canon of political theory, focusing on theorists' (beginning with Plato) preoccupation with civic unity and harmony and the obstacles that inordinate accumulations of great wealth have long been recognized as posing for societies. "Perhasp the single most common theme uniting thinkers in this book regarding the problem of inequality is the degree to whcih inequality divides political communities."

His particular bete-noir is sufficientarianism, which is preoccupied with alleviating poverty rather than overcoming inequality. With Adam Smith, the traditional zero-sum view of the economy changed importantly with the new capitalist understanding of economic growth. One consequence of the reality of economic growth has been the sufficientarian preoccupation with poverty to the neglect of inequality. Yet, as Plato's 4:1 ratio reminds us, there are limits to how much inequality a society can appropriately tolerate. Sufficientariansim, according to Williams, "severely constrains the moral imagination as it has been expressed throughout history." It also ignores something well understood by the theorists analyzed in this book, namely "the corrupting effect of inequality on the rich themselves."

This well written retrieval of the tradition of the history of political thought offers a rich treatment of why and how economic inequality contributes to social disunity, political instability, and deep-seated personal and collective moral corruption.

Jaywalking in NYC

 

After 66 years, it is now legal again to jaywalk in New York City! I am (sigh) old enough to remember when crossing the street against the light became illegal in 1958. I remember the TV ads that said, "You now risk a Summons"! In fact, until the change in the law this year, jaywalking carried a fine of up to $250.

From what I have observed, jaywalking is almost universal in New York and in many other places as well. (I remember how shocked I was when I moved to Milwaukee in 1977 to discover that the law against jaywalking was actually enforced there.) It seems to be natural human rebellion against the automobile's claim to own the streets.

The weird term "jaywalking" apparently originated in the early 1900s, transferring to pedestrians who crossed the street contrary to traffic laws an expression "jay-driver" already in use for someone who drove on the wrong side of the road. (The term "jay" at that time apparently had the connotation of someone who didn't know how to behave in a city.) Applied to pedestrians, it validated the 20th-century mistake that the streets - and, therefore, cities - belong to cars, not people.

Of course, caution in crossing the street is always advisable. According to the NYC Department of Transportation, 200 people have died in the last five years while crossing the street against traffic signals. On the other hand, everyone recognizes that it is often quite safe to cross against the light or outside the cross walk. It all depends on the presence or absence of actual traffic.

The often overly congested character of New York City traffic adds to jaywalking's appeal. When traffic seems stuck and barely moving and horns are blowing (more as an expression of frustration and impatience rather than as a practical measure), it is natural to take the opportunity to cross wherever one can. It is part of the dynamic created by congestion that valorizes assertion and pushing ahead wherever possible.

Look both ways - and keep looking - is the only safe way to cross, whether with the light or even now against it.

Dilexit Nos

 

On October 24, Pope Francis issued an Encyclical Letter Dilexit Nos ("On the Human and Divine Love of the Heart of Jesus Christ"). This was the first encyclical devoted entirely to the Sacred Heart since Pius XII's encyclical Haurietis Aquas, published on May 15, 1956, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus by Pope Pius IX. Given the special relationships between Jesuits and the modern devotion to the Sacred Heart.

Like so many such documents, Dilexit Nos is longer than it needs to be and unlikely to attract casual readers. That said, there are a few points it would be particularly desirable to mention. Francis highlights how what we contemplate and adore in this devotion "is the whole Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, represented by an image that accentuates his heart. That heart of flesh is seen as the privileged sign of the inmost being of the incarnate Son and. his love, the heart of Jesus is 'the natural sign and symbol of his boundless love" (48). The Pope stresses the significance of the image of the heart. "Universal human experience has made the image of the heart something unique" (53). "The venerable image portraying Christ holding out jis loving heart also shows him looking directly at us, inviting us to encounter, dialogue and trust; it shows his strong hands capable of supporting us and his lips that speak personally to each of us" (54).

Devotion to the Sacred Heart highlights the humanity of Christ. "The Fathers of the Church, opposing those who denied or downplayed the true humanity of Christ, insisted on the concrete and tangible reality of the Lord's human affections" (62). "Devotion to Christ's heart is essential for our Christian life to the extent that it expresses our openness in faith and adoration to the mystery of the Lord's divine and human love" (83).

Francis recalls the historical importance of this devotion in the battle against Jansenists, who "looked askance on all that was human, affective and corporeal, and so viewed this devotion as distancing us from pure worship of the Most High God" (86). Moving to today, "we are also seeing a proliferation of varied forms of religiosity that have nothing to do with a personal relationship with the God of love, but are new manifestations of a disembodied spirituality" (87). Francis also adds "that the heart of Christ also frees us from another kind of dualism found in communities and pastors excessively caught up in external activities, structural reforms that have little to do with the Gospel, obsessive reorganization plans, worldly projects, secular ways of thinking and mandatory programmes" (88).

Regarding the history of the devotion, "the Church today rejects nothing of the good that the Holy Spirit has bestowed on us down the centuries, for she knows that it will always be possible to discern a clearer and deeper meaning in certain aspects of that devotion, and to gain new insights over the course of time" (109). Unsurprisingly, the Pope highlights the devotion's resonances within the Society of Jesus. He quotes Pedro Arupe: "From my novitiate on, I have always been convinced that what we call devotion to the Sacred Heart contains a symbolic expression of what is most profound in Ignatian spirituality, and of an extraordinary efficacy - ultra quam speraverint - both for its own perfection and for apostolic fruitfulness" (146).

Finally, the Pope addresses what he calls "the missionary dimension." Accordingly, "our work as Christians for the betterment of society should not obscure it religious inspiration, for that, in the end, would be to seek less for our brothers and sisters than what God desires to give them" (205).

Francis concludes: "Christ's love can give a heart to our world and revive love wherever we think that the ability to love has been definitively lost" (218).

November

In November, in the days to remember the dead
When air smells cold as earth,
St. Malachy, who is very old, gets up,
Parts the thin curtain of trees and dawns upon our land.

So begins a famous poem by the 20th-century American monk Thomas Merton. (Saint Malachy was a 12th-century Cistercian who became Bishop of Saint Patrick's See of Armagh, whose feast is customarily kept of November 3, the day after All Souls Day.)

Once upon a time, November 1 marked the beginning of the old European/Celtic winter. Even if, sadly, the weather isn't quite so cold as it used to be at this point in the year (thanks to the self-inflicted damage of climate change), the November Triduum of Halloween, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day does bring with it an inescapable shift in mood, traditionally reflected in the change of seasons. (In Tennessee last weekend, I did get to see fantastic fall foliage, another seasonal sign that sometimes seems increasingly muted.)

These annual days to remember the dead keep us connected with those who have gone before us, whose number, of course, keeps increasing as we age and come closer to joining them. It is more than merely a matter of nostalgia. Remembering is a fundamentally human activity, all the more to be treasured as we age. Remembering those whose lives once intersected with ours affirms that their lives were real and genuinely mattered. Factor in the faith dimension of the Communion of Saints, which All Saints and All Souls Days are intended to focus on, our remembering those who have gone before us marked with the sign of faith celebrates our shared destiny and shared hope.  

Photo: November Memorials to the Departed, Saint Paul the Apostle Church, NY.

Conclave (The Movie)

Almost eight years ago (January 29, 2017), I posted a review of Conclave, a book by British novelist Robert Harris, noted for his fictionalized accounts of power and its corruptions. That novel is now a movie. Thanks largely to its impressive cast and beautiful filming, Conclave (the movie) is getting lots of well deserved attention and pre-Oscar speculation. The cast includes Ralph Fiennes as Cardinal Lawrence, Dean of the Sacred College and thus the one tasked to manage the Conclave, through whom we experience most of the tension in the film, Stanley Tucci as Cardinal Bellini, Lawrence's friend and leader of the "progressive" faction, Sergio Castellito as Cardinal Tedesco, the leader of the "conservative" faction, Lucian Msamati as Cardinal Adeyemi, the African papabile (until he isn't anymore), John LIthgow as Cardinal Tremblay, another particularly ambitious and problematic contender, Carlos Diehz as Cardinal Benitez, the mystery cardinal, and Isabella Rossellini as Sister Agnes, who is in charge of the domestic arrangements for the Conclave.

To reprise some of what I said about the book that applies also to the film, the conflicts and divisions among the cardinals are what we might expect. They present a plausible portrayal of current conflicts and divisions in the contemporary Church, filtered here through the personal ambitions and rivalries of different cardinals participating in the conclave. The unexpected arrival of a hitherto unknown cardinal (named by the deceased pope in pectore) predictably at first gives the novel a kind of vaguely Shoes of the Fisherman feel, which creates a certain expectation of how it will end, an expectation that persists, despite all the twists and turns and personal ups and downs of the plot  And, as different papabili rise and fall in the balloting and are eventually eliminated by a cleverly constructed series of personal scandals and various political machinations that punctuate the otherwise routine sequence of (beautifully portrayed) ritual ballots, the film does indeed seem to set us up for a predictable outcome. Then comes a shocking and radically challenging finale which no one, no matter how attentive to contemporary ecclesiastical conflicts, would likely have expected (and which I will not reveal lest I spoil the film for anyone).

Having read the book, I knew the surprise ending already, but from the multiple gasps of surprise I heard in the crowded theater I must assume that most of those in the theater with me last week had not read the book beforehand! In any case, so unexpected is the ending (even more so in the movie than in the book, which at least contained mild hints) that I almost think of it as two separate stories. The first is a well-crafted, entertaining, and at times insightful, if conventionally ideological and propagandistic account of the conflicts and divisions in the Church and hence the explosive mix of spirituality, religion, ideology, and personal and national ambitions, with might be expected to characterize a contemporary conclave. The second suggests a scenario so implausible and so spiritually and religiously problematic that it completely overshadows and detracts from the more relevantly realistic first story, submerging it in an outrageous moral ambiguity that far exceeds the moral ambiguities that characterized the first story. 

That said, the movie is beautifully filmed and exceptionally well acted, well worth seeing, whatever one thinks of its finale.